国有股权、经营风险、预算软约束与公司业绩:中国上市公司的实证发现

以中国上市公司为例,本文首次采用分量回归模型实证分析了国有股权对公司业绩的复杂影响。我们发现:在经营表现较差的上市公司,国有股东监督内部人的积极作用超过了行政或政治干预公司经营的消极作用;而在经营表现较好的上市公司,以上作用没有显著差异。源自国有股权并受经营风险影响的上市公司的预算软约束预期损害了所有公司的业绩。与经营表现较好的公司相比,在经营表现最差的公司,国有股东监督内部人的积极作用以及国有股权导致的预算软约束预期的消极作用都更为显著。虽然国有股权对公司业绩影响的净效果在所有上市公司中都为负,但在业绩最差的上市公司里负面作用最为突出。政策含义在于国有股权的调整应当从业绩最差的上市公司开始。     

The Emergence of Concentrated Ownership Structures in East Germany: the implications for enterprise restructuring ∗

In the transitional economies of East and Central Europe, privatization is widely considered essential for transforming the large state-owned enterprises. However, eager to expose the public enterprises to ‘hard budget constraints’, economists have neglected the importance of who the owners are. Studies of ownership structures and post-privatization restructuring in east Germany provide evidence that ownership matters for transformation success. The adoption of west German institutions in the east and the sale of state industrial property in concentrated shares to ‘insider’ investors seem to have created good conditions for the long-term committed investments essential for the rebuilding of tangible and intangible assets in east German enterprises. However, the control structures of a sample of enterprises reveal a wide range of investment strategies between types of corporate investors. Just as legal and financial institutions set constraints on ownership structure, the ownership structure sets constraints on the range of investment choices. Whether committed investments occur will depend on constrained strategic decisions of the new private owners.     

INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR,CORPORATE CONTROL,AND PRIVATE BENEFITS OF CONTROL: EVIDENCE FROM A SURVEY OF UKRAINIAN FIRMS

We analyse the impact of ownership and corporate control on firms’ investment using the 2001 survey of Yacoub et al. on Ukrainian firms. The model explains investment by output, financial and soft budget constraints, and corporate control (and ownership) categories potentially enjoying private benefits of control. We find that the corporate control model fits better than the ownership model, a negative relationship between state and employee control and firms’ investment, and evidence for the presence of soft budget constraints. A negative relationship between firms’ investment and the relative size of non‐monetary transactions strengthens the conclusion of private benefits of control impacting investment.     

Determinants of Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: Description of a Survey in Russian Industry

The survey described in this article collects data on enterprise restructuring, ownership, competition, budget constraints and, particularly, institutions in Russian industry, covering the period between the start of 1992 and September 1999. On their own, the survey answers show a devastating restructuring crisis, massive privatisation, rather weak competition, unexpectedly hard budget constraints, an overwhelmingly negative and relatively positive assessment of formal and informal institutions respectively, and largely the same ruling networks as before the start of market reforms. Ironically, tentative results based on this survey indicate that important determinants of enterprise restructuring in Russian industry are exactly those on which least reform has been accomplished: stronger competition and better institutions go with more restructuring, while privatisation and harder budget constraints do not. The substitution, to some extent, of informal for formal institutions may have prevented even worse restructuring figures, but better formal institutions in general would have led to further improvements.     

国企分红再分配与投资 决策价值相关性研究* ——基于国有资本红利返还的初步证据

以2007年以来颁布的有关规范国有资本收益收缴和资本预算制度为背景，本文考察了上市国有企业分红对其资本性投资支出决策价值相关性的影响机理。搜集以国有企业分红返还为代表的“体内循环”证据，通过国有股权比例衡量红利“体内循环”的预期操控强度，验证了国有股红利“体内循环”与企业资本性投资支出决策价值相关性的关系以及受国有资本收益收缴和预算制度的影响。本文指出的国资红利再分配的“两面性”，对混合所有制发展和国有企业市值管理均具有一定的理论和现实意义。     

Channels of restructuring in privatized Czech companies1

The main contribution of this paper to the literature on restructuring in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe is the analysis of productivity‐growth effects for different channels of restructuring. It examines a panel of 737 voucher‐privatized Czech companies in the first years after the transfer of ownership (between 1993 and 1998). The results indicate that asset sales and employee incentives serve as restructuring channels through which productivity of the privatized companies increases. The analysis also indicates that capital expenditures, labour shedding and CEO replacements are not significantly correlated to productivity growth. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that the availability of bank loans is positively associated with productivity growth, but not for less profitable firms. This provides some evidence in support of soft budget constraints accommodated via bank lending.     

Firm growth and productivity in Belarus: New empirical evidence from the machine building industry

Using a unique dataset comprising information for (up to) 153 firms in the machine building sector in Belarus, we investigate the determinants of firm growth for an economy where state ownership of enterprises is widespread. We use panel data models based on generalizations of Gibrat’s law, total factor productivity estimates and matching methods to assess the differences in firm growth between private and state-controlled firms. Our results indicate that labor hoarding and soft budget constraints play a particularly important role in explaining differences in performance between these two groups of firms.     

The impact of equity ownership groups on investment: Evidence from Ukraine

We empirically investigate the impact of different ownership groups on companies’ investment in Ukraine with a novel dynamic investment model where investment is based on present and historical levels of profitability (market-to-book value of equity) and lagged investment. Groups include state, insider, non-domestic, financial and financial and industrial group (FIG) ownership. Contrary to the literature, we find that the past level of profitability significantly affects investment; the majority presence of and increases in state ownership have a negative impact on firms’ investment, as is the case for non-domestic and financial companies’ ownership. Insider and FIG ownership have no impact on investment. We explain the results by the extent of liquidity concerns (hard and soft budget constraints), measured by cash flow interacted with a dummy variable of majority ownership of the respective group, and the extent of asset stripping for the corresponding ownership group and relate them to over- and under-investment, and to the free cash flow or cash constraint hypothesis.     

中国银行业效率的实证分析

中国于 2 0 0 1年 1 2月加入WTO ,5年之后必须对外全面开放国内银行业市场。中国的银行一直以大量不良贷款和效率低下而著称。尽管在逐步改革 ,中国的银行体系仍由国有银行主导并形成垄断控制。怎样提高效率是国内银行尤其是国有商业银行生存和成功的关键。以下两个重要因素可能有助于提高中国的银行效率 :所有制改革和硬预算约束。本文使用了 2 2家银行 1 995— 2 0 0 1年期间的一组数据 ,利用随机前沿生产函数研究了所有制结构和硬预算约束对银行效率的影响。经验结果表明 ,非国有银行比国有银行效率高 1 1 %— 1 8% ;面临硬预算约束的银行的绩效比国家和地方政府投入大量资本的银行好。本文结论的重要意义是 :在加入WTO 3年后的今天 ,中国银行业的改革面临着更为严峻的挑战     

Restructuring outcomes and the evolution of ownership patterns in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper begins from the proposition that ‘deep restructuring’ requires both finance and managerial expertise. It addresses the question of how this second stage of enterprise restructuring will come about in the majority of state-owned or former state-owned firms that are not owned by foreigners. In particular, it seeks to identify how the initial post-privatization ownership and control structure impinges on the likelihood that deep restructuring takes place. Conclusions for the design of privatization policy are drawn. The initial post-privatization ownership structures in the Visegrad countries and Russia are surveyed along with evidence of the transfer of ownership from insiders to outsiders.     

混合所有制公司中的国有股权——论国有股减持的理论基础

本文通过回答以下问题来建立国有股减持的理论基础 :国有股权在混合所有制公司中的作用是什么 ,以及国有股权比重应该如何调整。以截止 1 998年底的中国上市公司为样本 ,我们首次考虑了股权结构内生性可能 ,以及公司上市时 ,政府在决定国有股权比重过程中面临的逆向选择问题 ,即在上市前业绩较差的公司 ,由于其较差的初始业绩导致较低的可流通股发行额度 ,政府不得不保留更多的国有股 ,从而表现为上市前业绩越差 ,上市时国有股权比重越高的反向关系。给定中国上市公司面临的独特制度环境 ,我们有以下发现 :( 1 )公司上市后 ,国有股股东有助于改善公司业绩 ;( 2 )公司上市时 ,政府在决定国有股权比重过程中确实存在着逆向选择问题 ;( 3 )公司上市后 ,国有股权比重内生决定于公司利润最大化过程 ,上市后的业绩越差 ,国有股比例越低。分析结果的政策含义在于 :政府减持国有股不能“一刀切” ,而应以公司业绩为依据 ,首先在上市后业绩较差的公司进行减持。     

Investment and the soft budget constraint in China

This paper examines the incentive effects of the soft budget constraint on the investment behavior of firms in general and on the investment-cash flow sensitivity in particular. To this end, we develop a simple model of moral hazard that takes the soft budget constraint into account. Within this moral hazard environment, we show that investment is positively related to the amount of internal funds. We further show that the presence of the soft budget constraint deteriorates the moral hazard problem, thereby making the investment level less sensitive to the amount of internal funds. This is the case irrespective of whether the soft budget constraint renders the firm more or less liquidity constrained. To test the model's empirical implications, we employ data of China's listed companies for the period from 1997 to 2003. We use the share of state ownership as a proxy for the severity of the soft budget constraint. We find strong evidence that firms with larger shares of state ownership exhibit lower investment-cash flow sensitivities than firms with smaller shares of state ownership.     

WTO challenges and efficiency of Chinese banks

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001, China was given 5 years to completely open up its banking market for international competition. Chinese banks have been renowned for their mounting nonperforming loans and low efficiency. Despite gradual reforms, the banking system is still dominated by state ownership and encapsulated monopolistic control. How to raise efficiency is a key to the survival and success of domestic banks, especially the state-owned commercial banks. Two important factors may be responsible for raising efficiency: ownership reform and hard budget constraints. This article uses a panel data of 22 banks over the period 1995 to 2001, and employs a stochastic frontier production function to investigate the effects of ownership structure and hard budget constraint on efficiency. Empirical results suggest that nonstate banks were 8–18% more efficient than state banks, and that banks facing a harder budget tend to perform better than those heavily capitalized by the state or regional governments. The results shed important light on banking sector reform in China to face the tough challenges after WTO accession.     

PUBLIC INVESTMENT,TAXATION AND TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY

A low‐wage developing economy (South) is interested in accessing and attracting superior technology from a high‐wage developed economy (North) with firms having heterogeneous quality of technology. To improve upon the initial market equilibrium, which shows that relatively inefficient technologies will move to the South, the host government invests in infrastructure financed through taxing the foreign firms. We discuss the problem of existence of such a tax‐transfer mechanism within a balanced budget framework. We argue that such a policy can increase tax revenue as well as instigate the transfer of better quality technology. It turns out that this policy is more likely to be successful when the production concerns high‐value, high‐price products in low‐wage economies. Our results improve upon the conventional strategy of a tax break.     

Origin and concentration

We analyse the effects of different types and concentration of ownership on performance using a large population of firms in the Czech Republic after mass privatization. Specifications based on first‐differences combined with instrumental variables show that the performance effects of different types and concentration of ownership are limited when compared to earlier studies. Often, concentrated ownership has a positive effect, a finding that supports the agency theory. The positive effect of foreign ownership is detected primarily for majority ownership and for ownership by foreign industrial firms. The state as a holder of the golden share has a positive effect on employment and sometimes, also on output and profitability. Overall, our results highlight the benefits of strategic restructuring accompanied by an inflow of new capital and managerial culture.     

Investment decisions and the soft budget constraint

This paper investigates the investment behaviour of a large panel of Hungarian firms in the period 1989–99, in order to assess the impact of institutional and regulatory changes on the efficiency of credit allocation. We find that the role of financial factors for investment decisions has changed significantly after the introduction of major financial reforms, and that firms were affected differently depending on their ownership type. Reforms have hardened the budget constraint of private domestic firms, particularly small ones, and reduced informational problems for foreign‐owned firms. State‐owned firms remained subject to a soft budget constraint. In particular, small state firms became more sensitive to financial conditions, whereas large state firms were unaffected and kept operating under a soft budget constraint.     

STRATEGIC BUDGET CONSTRAINTS IN A UNIONIZED MIXED OLIGOPOLY

This paper considers the budget‐constraint problem where the government decides whether or not to impose a budget constraint on the public firm, assuming the public firm is less efficient than private firms. We find that imposing budget constraints on the public firm is the preferred choice because of the welfare‐improving effect. Our model suggests that the wage levels of the public firm can be lower or higher than those of private firms depending upon the degree of inefficiency. These results differ from Ishida and Matsushima's findings that in a unionized mixed duopoly, tight budget constraints can enhance social welfare when the public firm is as efficient as private firms.     

Give Macroeconomic Stability and Growth in Russia a Chance

This paper identifies and investigates conceptual and empirical links among Russia's disappointing growth performance of the mid-1990s, its costly and eventually unsuccessful stabilization, the macroeconomic meltdown of 1998 and the spectacular rise of non-payments. Non-payments developed into a system that flourished in an atmosphere of fundamental inconsistency between a macroeconomic policy geared at sharp disinflation and a microeconomic policy of bailing-out enterprises through soft budget constraints. It embodies a large volume of untargeted, implicit subsidies in the order of 7–10 per cent of GDP, which has stifled growth, contributed to the 1998 meltdown through its impact on public debt and made at best a questionable contribution to equity. The overwhelming priority at this point is to dismantle this system, thereby promoting enterprise restructuring and growth (by hardening budget constraints) and medium-term macroeconomic stability (by reducing the size of the subsidies).     

Collective relationship banking and private information monitoring in Korea1

This paper introduces the notion of collective relationship banking (CRB) as a mechanism for monitoring private information and characterizes the probability of such a banking relationship existing when the borrowing firms have heterogeneous vertical ownership structures. Using a Korean firm‐level panel dataset, the empirical results of the paper suggest that firms with smaller holding companies’ ownership stakes are more likely to choose CRB. This can be explained in terms of CRB as a means to overcome informational asymmetries as holding companies can provide indirect monitoring. The paper then addresses policy concerns associated with corporate restructuring which may create a more concentrated banking relationship with a few dominant banks.     

Wage inequality and between-firm wage dispersion in the 1990s: A comparison of rural and urban enterprises in China

Using a worker–firm matched sample, this paper compares the changes of wage structures of urban and rural enterprises following public sector restructuring in China's manufacturing sector. While the wage responses of rural firms with respect to firm characteristics are found to have declined steadily, compensation of urban workers has become increasingly linked to their firms' ability to pay. Our analysis reveals that industrial restructuring has weakened the influence of institutional factors, such as market power, soft budget constraints, and insider influence, on the wage determination of rural firms but it has enhanced their impact on urban firms. Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (4) (2005) 664–687.